Forty Hall Museum

#44

North London’s Jacobean surprise: a 1620s gabled manor set in rolling parkland, orchards and lakes. Built for Sir Nicholas Rainton—silk merchant, Lord Mayor, and consummate self-promoter—Forty Hall mixes period rooms with light-touch local history so families can explore without museum fatigue. The real joy is how house, farm and landscape still talk to each other: a short loop takes you from carved staircases to veteran trees and back for coffee by the lake.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 11:00 – 17:00

Thursday: 11:00 – 17:00

Friday: 11:00 – 17:00

Saturday: 11:00 – 17:00

What's not to miss inside?

Great Stair & Hall

A Jacobean ‘first impression’ machine

Dark timber, portrait glances and a confidently wide stair telegraph the owner’s rise from trade to power.

Stand halfway up and look back to the door—this is the view guests were meant to remember.

📍 Ground floor, entrance range

Withdrawing Room

Status with a fireplace

Panelled walls and deep windows show how comfort and display were stitched together in the 1620s.

Check window glass: older, wavier panes bend the garden into painterly shapes.

📍 First floor, south front

Estate Loop Walk

House + landscape = one design

A quick circuit reveals how views were framed to sell ‘country’ calm a day’s ride from the City.

Take the path that skirts the water; line up the house façade through trees for the classic photo.

📍 Lake–Orchard–Lime Avenue

Forty Hall Farm

Working farm next to a manor

Animals, veg beds and a community vineyard keep the estate productive—just as it was meant to be.

Scan the noticeboard for seasonal activity—kids love lambing time.

📍 North of the house

🤓 Fun Facts

Forty Hall was built for Sir Nicholas Rainton, a wealthy silk merchant who became Lord Mayor of London in 1632—the house is a billboard for a self-made man.

The estate sits above the course of the Turkey Brook; the lake you see today began life as a managed water feature for fish and reflection.

A short walk away is Elsyng Palace (archaeological site), a Tudor royal residence where Henry VIII stayed—so your Jacobean house has Tudor neighbours.

The farm includes a community-run vineyard: London wine from a 17th-century estate is very much a 21st-century twist.